Street View Images for Dallas, Detroit and Other 6 Cities — Every two or three months Google adds new cities to Street View. This time Google included eight new cities from the US: Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, Fort Worth, Boston, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Providence (all of them are in the top 150 US cities by population).

Get ready for your close-up — Google's acclaimed, criticized Street View bears down on Boston — Google Inc.'s controversial Street View feature, which offers 360-degree, street-level images of urban life so clear that passersby often can be identified, is set to make its Boston debut this morning.

Dell Latitude XT tablet hands-on — We spent a few minutes with the brand new Dell Latitude XT and we have to say, as far as tablets (and especially Dells) go, this thing is top-tier. Some thoughts: — The whole machine's decked in a ThinkPad-esque soft touch finish …

Latitude XT Details — Lots of folks have been waiting for us to release more details on the Latitude XT Tablet PC. My first brief post about it has received more than 400 comments and has gone on to become the #1 most viewed post in Direct2Dell's history.

Ask.com Puts a Bet on Privacy — Will privacy sell? — Ask.com is betting it will. The fourth-largest search engine company will begin a service today called AskEraser, which allows users to make their searches more private. — Ask.com and other major search engines like Google …

Vudu adds TV shows — The previously movie-only Vudu now offers some TV episodes as well — When we reviewed the Vudu back in September, we said "only feature films are available, but Vudu says that TV shows are on the roadmap." Vudu made good on that pledge today, adding 12 TV shows to its content roster.

PageRank wrecked the web — Two years later and rel=nofollow is still bugging folks. — Google needs YOUR help — It's still bugging me, too. It doesn't make any sense. — Bad linking hurts everybody — Google couldn't seriously be asking webmasters to tag which of their links …

In Test, Canadian ISP Splices Itself Into Google Homepage — A screen shot posted to the web over the weekend seems to show that Canada's largest provider of high-speed internet access is exploring a controversial data substitution technique that lets it add its own content to the webpages customers visit.

VoIP confirmed!!! — Amazing news, guys! I have no words! We all knew it will come. — So here it is: — eok did manage to make the Nintendo DS-based SIP app from Samuel running on the iPod Touch!! — Samuel's page here: svsip.free.fr — His SW does use pjsip from pjsip.org.

Rice and laptops — Criticism of plans to get technology into the developing world is misplaced, says Bill Thompson. — One of the best things about being on the World Service radio programme Digital Planet each week is that I get to hear about interesting technologies from many different countries …

Dutch government threatens to sideline Microsoft — Proposed legislation that would mandate the use of the Open Document Format (ODF) across the entire Dutch government has infuriated Microsoft. A group promoting open standards sees no threat, however, and has invited Microsoft to join its ranks.

Downloads give Amazon jungle fever — Amazon is ahead of the competition when it comes to selling physical goods over the web - so it is galling when the company gets it so wrong with digital downloads, says Cory Doctorow — Jeff Bezos: "When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to

Jaxtr Racks Up Over 5 Million Users In Under 5 Months — Social communications startup Jaxtr has been experiencing some pretty amazing growth. They've attracted over 5 million users in under 5 months (140 days). It's a ten fold increase in users since they reported 500,000 users in July.

FolderShare AutoDeletes Files. Whoops — One of the favorite things I like to hear from developers when some horrible and embarrassing bug manifests itself is "It's a feature not a bug." It's a joke of course, but it's unlikely Microsoft developers will be doing any joking around as they try …

Amateur Time Hackers Play With Atomic Clocks at Home — BELLEVUE, Washington — Tom Van Baak's spare upstairs bedroom looks like a cross between the control center of a remote polar outpost and the inner sanctum of a Victorian mad scientist. In reality, it's a home-built lab dedicated to the study of time.